Permanent link to MTA daily media news

Internet Weekly Report

Rick Scott Regurgitates Clinton-Era Talking Points (Think Progress)
[Sumday], NBC broadcasted End of Patient Rights: The Human Consequences of Government Run Healthcare, a 30-minute “documentary” produced by Rick Scott’s Conservatives For Patients Rights. The ad, which felt like a poorly-designed infomercial slated for the witching hour, followed Rick Scott and former CNN producer Gene Randall as they traveled to Great Britain and Canada, interviewing patients, medical professionals, and academics about the deficiencies of single-payer health care…

[I]n 1993 and 1994, Scott successfully opposed President Clinton’s health reform efforts. Since then, the cost per person of American health care has more than doubled, with an annual growth rate regularly more than twice that of inflation. A growing number of Americans are struggling to afford health insurance, but Rick Scott is using the very same hollow rhetoric to oppose reform now, as he did then.
Click through to watch a video compilation.

Romer on Health Care Costs: ‘The Nightmare Scenario is Getting Closer’ (by Yunji de Nies at Political Punch, ABC News)
The woman who describes herself as “the most passionate person for health care reform in the entire White House” told reporters yesterday that with 46 million Americans currently uninsured, the country is “on an absolutely unsustainable trajectory.” The White House Council of Economic Advisers Chair Christina Romer spoke briefly in advance of a new CEA report: The Economic Case for Health Care Reform… The CEA report found that currently, health care expenditures account for 18 percent of U.S. GDP and projects that by 2040, that number will grow to 34 percent. “The nightmare scenario is getting closer,” Romer said. “If we don’t do this, we’re going to be facing a huge mess 30 years from now. Because a huge fraction of everything we produce will be going into health care.”

Baucus Watch, Part X (by Trudy Lieberman, Columbia Journalism Review)
It’s Baucus vs. Kennedy, Round One. This weekend’s dispute over the two senators’ separate plans for the much-discussed public insurance option, which would compete against private carriers in the individual insurance market, is a perfect example of a health-care process story—of the horserace genre—that tells Washington insiders which politicos have the upper hand. These process stories are tres important for lobbyists, who need to identify legislative pressure points, and for members of Congress, who may look to party elders for guidance in molding their own positions. But horserace stories don’t help the public understand what’s at stake for them. In 1993-94, these sorts of stories came to dominate media coverage of health reform; it looks like history is about to repeat itself.

Mark your calendars: Wednesday, June 3 2009, Max Baucus slated meet with single payer advocates (by hipparchia at Corrente)
So says the Single Payer Action blog and it’s thanks to activists like you. “After months of proclaiming that single payer is off the table, Senator Max Baucus (D-Montana) has invited five key single payer advocates to meet with him in Washington, D.C. this week.”

DEAN: FORGET BIPARTISANSHIP ON HEALTH CARE (First Read)
Howard Dean said a public health insurance option is more important than bipartisanship, and that Democrats should pass health-care legislation that includes the option with 51 votes if necessary. Dean added that Democrats should have “no intention” of working with Republicans if it’s not the strongest possible legislation that could be passed with a simple majority. “If Republicans want to shill for insurance companies, then we should do it with 51 votes,” Dean said during a news conference at the first day of the liberal America‘s Future Now! Conference.

Matt Davies

Grand Theft Auto: How Stevie the Rat bankrupted GM (by Greg Palast)
While GM workers are losing their retirement health benefits, their jobs, their life savings; while shareholders are getting zilch and many creditors getting hosed, a few privileged GM lenders – led by  Morgan and Citibank – expect to get back 100% of their loans to GM, a stunning $6  billion… I smell a rat. Stevie the Rat, to be precise.  Steven Rattner, Barack  Obama’s ‘Car Czar’ – the man who essentially ordered GM into bankruptcy [on Monday]… [W]hat’s wrong with seizing workers’ pension fund money in a bankruptcy?  The answer, Mr. Obama, Mr. Law Professor, is that it’s illegal.

The 31-Year-Old in Charge of Dismantling G.M. (New York Times)
It is not every 31-year-old who, in a first government job, finds himself dismantling General Motors and rewriting the rules of American capitalism. But that, in short, is the job description for Brian Deese, a not-quite graduate of Yale Law School who had never set foot in an automotive assembly plant until he took on his nearly unseen role in remaking the American automotive industry. Nor, for that matter, had he given much thought to what ailed an industry that had been in decline ever since he was born.
Let’s just put children in charge of everything. See how it turns out.

Hannity asks whether GM bankruptcy deal is really “about a power grab by the government” (video at County Fair, Media Matters for America)

Cavuto on GM bankruptcy: “The government has now become Tony Soprano and you don’t make a move without checking with Tony” (video at County Fair, Media Matters for America)

The Future of Manufacturing, GM, and American Workers (Part III) (by Robert Reich)
[W]hy would US taxpayers want to own today’s GM? Surely not because the shares promise a high return when the economy turns up. GM has been on a downward slide for years… It cannot be to preserve GM jobs, because the US Treasury has signaled GM must slim to get the cash… The purpose cannot be to create a new, lean, debt-free company that might one day turn a profit… Nor is the purpose of the bail-out to create a new generation of fuel-efficient cars. Congress has already given auto makers money to do this. Besides, the Treasury has said it has no interest in being an active investor or telling the industry what cars to make.

The only practical purpose I can imagine for the bail-out is to slow the decline of GM to create enough time for its workers, suppliers, dealers and communities to adjust to its eventual demise. Yet if this is the goal, surely there are better ways to allocate $60 billion than to buy GM? The funds would be better spent helping the Midwest diversify away from cars, as the auto industry continues to shrink. And eventually, for the reasons stated in Parts I and II of this series, diversify away from manufacturing assembly. Cash could be used to retrain car workers, giving them extended unemployment insurance as they retrain.

Goodbye, GM (by Michael Moore)
[Y]ou and I and the rest of America now own a car company! I know, I know — who on earth wants to run a car company? Who among us wants $50 billion of our tax dollars thrown down the rat hole of still trying to save GM? Let’s be clear about this: The only way to save GM is to kill GM. Saving our precious industrial infrastructure, though, is another matter and must be a top priority. If we allow the shutting down and tearing down of our auto plants, we will sorely wish we still had them when we realize that those factories could have built the alternative energy systems we now desperately need. And when we realize that the best way to transport ourselves is on light rail and bullet trains and cleaner buses, how will we do this if we’ve allowed our industrial capacity and its skilled workforce to disappear?

Thus, as GM is “reorganized” by the federal government and the bankruptcy court, here is the plan I am asking President Obama to implement for the good of the workers, the GM communities, and the nation as a whole…
1. Just as President Roosevelt did after the attack on Pearl Harbor, the President must tell the nation that we are at war and we must immediately convert our auto factories to factories that build mass transit vehicles and alternative energy devices…
2. Don’t put another $30 billion into the coffers of GM to build cars. Instead, use that money to keep the current workforce — and most of those who have been laid off — employed so that they can build the new modes of 21st century transportation. Let them start the conversion work now.
Click through for more. It’s an interesting proposal

Old War on New Deal (by Alexander Gourse, In These Times, thanks to Susie at Suburban Guerilla)
[According to New York University historian Kim Phillips-Fein in her new book, Invisible Hands: The Making of the Conservative Movement from the New Deal to Reagan, leaders] of big business began their assault on liberalism when the New Deal was barely a year old. In 1934, the du Pont brothers founded the American Liberty League to wage a public relations campaign against FDR… In subsequent decades, business leaders experimented with ways of implementing free-market ideology. Corporations, such as General Electric, hoping to convince workers not to join unions, invested in new management techniques that entrenched “market culture” within the workplace.

When government agencies like the National Labor Relations Board got in the way of such attempts at ideological engineering, companies funneled money toward upstart conservative politicians who promised to rein in federal protections for organized labor. When legislators began passing new environmental and consumer safety regulations in the ’70s, business leaders underwrote economic research that pointed to regulation as an impediment to growth and invested in a legal strategy that they hoped would preserve their “rights” against arbitrary state authority… Phillips-Fein provides a reminder of the influence that powerful individuals can wield over the national debate.

Why do they get away with this, for example?
Visa Program IT Workers Exceed Total Number Of Jobless U.S. Workers Within The Same Occupation (Labor Radio, thanks to Susie at Suburban Guerilla)
As the United States investigate cases of fraud within the H-1B visa program, some staggering numbers have been released. Jesse Russell reports. According to government statistics in January of 2009 “the total number of workers employed in the information technology occupation under the H-1B program substantially exceeded the 241,000 unemployed U.S. citizen workers within the same occupation.” There is a cap of 85,000 H-1B visas annually in the United States. According to an article on ComputerWorld.com the concern from the U.S. government was expressed in court documents filed during a case against Vision Systems Group relating to visa fraud charges.

Reducing inequality: put the brakes on globalization? (by Lane Kenworthy at Consider the Evidence, thanks to Economist’s View)
Among the things we Americans can learn from the Danes, Swedes, and Dutch … is that it’s possible to embrace globalization (and other sources of economic change and disruption) and still have a high-opportunity, low-inequality, low-poverty society… Most of us want policies like wage insurance, better unemployment compensation, portable health insurance and pensions, support for retraining, and assistance with job placement not just because they can help to blunt the adverse consequences of globalization, but because they do so for economic change in general — whether it’s a product of technological progress, geographical shifts of industries and firms within the United States, or what have you. Arguing for limits on globalization directs attention away from these policies, making their adoption less likely.

Paradoxically, then, we end up with the worst of both worlds: marginal trade limits, half-hearted steps to curtail investment abroad, confused and ineffective immigration policy, and too little of the supports and cushions needed for successful adjustment.

Incorporate this! (by Michael Lind, Salon)
Imagine a USA Corporation, which pays a lower corporate income tax, or perhaps no corporate income tax, in return for locating most of its value-added production in the United States (the economist Ralph Gomory has proposed a similar deal through the tax code). USA Corporations could be chartered only by the federal government, in order to prevent a race-to-the-bottom in standards among American states (yes, that means you, Delaware). The chartering could be done by simple registration with the federal government; separate bills before Congress would not be necessary. And if Goldman Sachs could convert itself into a bank holding company, then existing general corporations should be allowed to convert themselves into USA Corporations, if they were willing to fulfill the requirements…

The power of ownership that the American people now wield in the case of GM and other corporations is both limited and passing. But the power to charter corporations for the purposes we choose and in the forms we prefer will always be a power we wield as a sovereign people. We the people should think about using our power.
Ooh, class warfare, Michael! We’re supposed to allow corporations to take every advantage over us unworthies who foot the bill.

White House: Krugman’s Bailout Critiques “Not Entirely Convincing” (by Sam Stein at the Huffington Post)
One of the leading progressive voices in the Obama White House said on Monday that criticism over the administration’s bailout policies from like-minded economists — namely the New York Times’ Paul Krugman and The American Prospect’s Robert Kuttner — were “not entirely convincing.” In a short speech at the America’s Future Now conference in Washington D.C., Jared Bernstein argued that, in the absence of any blueprint, the best way to judge a bailout policy was to look at its success. On this front, he reasoned, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner deserved credit…

It is hardly unusual for an administration figure to defend its own policies. But Bernstein’s strong response to Krugman shows the extent of the divide between the White House and the Nobel Prize-winning economist — and just how confident the administration is with the early returns on its bailout and economic recovery packages.
Well, I guess we’ll see.

Closing the Benefits Loophole (Wall Street Journal)
A bipartisan group of legislators is pressing the Treasury Department to close a loophole that has allowed banks to seize Social Security and disability benefits from customers’ accounts despite federal rules intended to protect these benefits from creditors… Federal law says creditors can’t take Social Security, disability, veterans’ and children’s survivor benefits to pay a debt. But the federal law doesn’t say how money deposited directly into bank accounts is to be protected — a gap that has given banks the ability to seize such funds.

Jesus’ General

Bill O’Reilly Attacks ‘Far Left’ For Criticism Over Death of George Tiller (by The Cajun Boy at Gawker)
In a much anticipated episode of the O’Reilly Factor, Bill O’Reilly addressed the murder of George Tiller, who he frequently called “Tiller the Baby Killer,” decrying the use of violence for political purposes and lashing out at those on the “far left” who dare to criticize him. In the “Talking Points” segment at the top of his show [on Monday], O’Reilly immediately condemned Tiller’s murder saying that “anarchy and vigilantism will destroy a society” and that the act was a “clear thing Americans should condemn.” But once O’Reilly got the formalities out of the way, he wasted no time blasting anyone who dared to implicate him in any of this. “When I heard about Tiller’s murder I knew that pro-abortion zealots and Fox News-haters would blame us for the crime.”

He went on to call out a laundry list of “vicious individuals” for implying that his incendiary rhetoric towards Tiller may have inspired the violence, among which were Arianna Huffington, Markos Moulitsas of Daily Kos (naturally!), former 60 Minutes producer Mary Mapes.

FLASHBACK: Video of O’Reilly producer’s ’07 ambush interview of Dr. Tiller (video at County Fair, Media Matters for America)

Pro-Lifer Says Murdered Doctor Reaped What He Sowed — Then Talks About Beer And Chicken Wings (by Greg Sargent at The Plum Line)
Pro-choice groups are drawing as much attention as possible to Operation Rescue founder Randall Terry’s caustic remarks about murdered doctor George Tiller, to taint the whole pro-life movement. One such group, People for the American Way, got a camera into a press conference Terry held [Monday] and hit the jackpot. At the presser, Terry railed that Tiller had “reaped what he sowed,” and attacked Tiller’s “child killing.” But then, according to audio of him off camera that the group caught, he effortlessly segued from the fire-and-brimstone talk about child-killing into a chipper discussion of lunch, saying he liked Guinness and chicken wings, “really hot and a little crispy.”
Click through to watch the video.

Tucker Carlson calls comparison of Dr. Tiller to Nazis and al-Qaida “objectively true” (by Jamison Foser at County Fair, Media Matters for America)

Palin joins abortion foes condemning Tiller’s slaying (McClatchy)
Abortion opponents on Monday condemned the fatal shooting of a prominent Kansas abortion provider and warned against attempts to “demonize” their movement because of one “unbalanced” person.

Nebraska physician vows to keep Tiller’s abortion clinic open (McClatchy)
Women’s Health Care Services, the clinic that has been bombed, blockaded and vandalized for more than 20 years because late-term abortions are performed there, will be closed this week to mourn the slaying Sunday of founder George Tiller.

Gunman Kills Soldier Outside Recruiting Station (New York Times, thanks to Susie at Suburban Guerilla)
A 23-year-old man upset about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan opened fire from his truck at two soldiers standing outside a military recruiting station [in Little Rock, Ark.] on Monday morning, killing one private and wounding another, the police said. The gunman, identified by the police as Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad of Little Rock, fled the scene and was arrested minutes later a short distance from the recruiting station, in a bustling suburban shopping center. The police confiscated a Russian-made SKS semiautomatic rifle, a .22-caliber rifle and a handgun from his black pickup truck…

In a lengthy interview with the police, Mr. Muhammad said he was angry about the killing of Muslims in Iraq and Afghanistan, [Chief Stuart Thomas of the Little Rock Police Department] said. Previously known as Carlos Bledsoe, Mr. Muhammad told investigators that he had converted to Islam as a teenager, Chief Thomas said.
Can’t tell the right-wing terrorists from the religious terrorists without a scorecard.

MSNBC runs graphic with Tiller’s picture and “Abortion Doctors Under Fire” (County Fair, Media Matters for America)

Sotomayor’s record shows she’s no sure vote on abortion (McClatchy)
The killing of a prominent abortion doctor brought anti-abortion activists Monday to the Supreme Court and fresh attention to high court nominee Sonia Sotomayor’s ambiguous stance on the hot-button issue. Activists on all sides can find solace in different parts of Sotomayor’s record on the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. She backed some abortion clinic protesters and a restrictive Bush administration policy on international family planning. At other times, she agreed with prosecutors who were seeking to charge clinic protesters with criminal contempt.

In Sotomayor’s 11 years as a New York-based appellate judge, however, she’s never squarely confronted the core questions surrounding abortion. “We don’t know what her views are on the constitutional issue,” Nancy Northup, the president of the Center for Reproductive Rights, an abortion-rights advocacy group, said in a telephone interview Monday.

Former Klansman David Duke Rips Limbaugh For ‘KKK’ Comparison, Says Sotomayor Is The Racist (Think Progress)
On Friday, Rush Limbaugh said that Judge Sonia Sotomayor “brings a form of bigotry and racism to the court” akin to that embraced by former KKK Grand Wizard David Duke… Responding on his personal website, David Duke decried the comparison to Sotomayor. “Limbaugh, a recent addict to illegal drugs, has no business making personal attacks against me for my past,” Duke said. “I have consistently supported true equal rights, stating again and again that I support the best-qualified person regardless of race in hiring and promotions.” But while rejecting Limbaugh on the one hand, Duke embraced the attacks against Sotomayor made last week by nativist former congressman Tom Tancredo, who said Sotomayor belongs to a “a Latino KKK without the hoods or the nooses.” 

Buchanan: “Sotomayor is a quota queen” who believes “equal justice takes a back seat to tribal justice” (County Fair, Media Matters for America)
From Buchanan’s June 2 syndicated column.

Buchanan says Sotomayor’s purported discrimination against “white males” similar to “what was done in the South” (video at County Fair, Media Matters for America)

CNN’s Sanchez says “vehement language” of Limbaugh, Gingrich could create rift between GOP and Hispanics (video at County Fair, Media Matters for America)

Why the Sotomayor Argument is a Waste of Time (by LisaB at No Quarter)
We’re all being played. The game is to attack as much as possible the other side – no rules. The past doesn’t matter, reality doesn’t matter, ethics don’t matter and neither does decency. The appalling fact is that the Left, self-described “staunch defender” of women, saw fit to eviscerate, with sexism, at least two women during the last campaign. You might think howling about perceived racism and sexism should, at least, embarrass Democrats now. But it DOESN’T.

THAT’S the takeaway here. There is no floor of behavior, there is no self reflection, there is no ultimate truth about the parties and you cannot count on them nor the MSM to tell the truth… I think Andrew Bacevich has it right: “…One of the great lies about American politics is that Democrats genuinely subscribe to a set of core convictions that make Democrats different from Republicans. And the same thing, of course, applies to the other party. It’s not true.”… None of these parties actually care about advancing women, or we might actually be ahead of countries like Rwanda or other sub-Saharan African states in female participation in government… [A]s Herman’s Hermits sang, “second verse, same as the first.”

Finally, Someone Brave Enought To Call Sonia Sotomayor “J-Lo” (by Pareene at Gawker)
While at first blush it may seem inappropriate to compare Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor to Jennifer Lopez simply because both are Latina women from modest backgrounds, you’ve got hear conservative commentator Debbie Schlussel out: she’s got a compelling argument for calling Sotomayor “J-Lo”: See, Sonia Sotomayor, like singer and actress Jennifer Lopez, is a Latina woman from a modest background. So it is pretty much exactly like nominating Jennifer Lopez, whose nickname, for a time, was J-Lo, to the highest court in the land. They are both Puerto Rican, and so therefore they are both extremely stupid and undeserving of their success.
Strictly following the celeb naming algorithm, Sotomayor would have to be, not “J-Lo”, but “So-So”.

Why’d Obama switch on detainee photos? Maliki went ballistic (McClatchy)
President Barack Obama reversed his decision to release detainee abuse photos from Iraq and Afghanistan after Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki warned that Iraq would erupt into violence and that Iraqis would demand that U.S. troops withdraw from Iraq a year earlier than planned, two U.S. military officers, a senior defense official and a State Department official have told McClatchy.
That’s strange, Obama didn’t tell us that was the reason.

LEADING RIGHTS GROUPS CALL ON OBAMA TO RELEASE PRISONER ABUSE PHOTOS (Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington)
Several of the nation’s leading human rights and civil liberties organizations sent a letter to President Obama today urging him to release photos depicting the abuse of detainees by U.S. personnel overseas

Gen. Ricardo Sanchez calls for war crimes truth commission. (Think Progress)
Sitting on a panel moderated by Rachel Maddow [Sunday] night, retired Army Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the top U.S. commander in Iraq from 2003-2004, called for a truth commission to investigate Bush-era interrogation and torture tactics.

US judge: Guantanamo evidence must be made public (Reuters)
A federal judge rejected on Monday a U.S. government request to keep secret the unclassified evidence that it says justifies the continued imprisonment of more than 100 Guantanamo Bay prisoners. U.S. District Judge Thomas Hogan ruled the government cannot keep the documents known as factual returns from public disclosure and must seek court approval to keep specific information secret.

Hey, I know. Hide the evidence in this game:
Guantanamo Bay video game in development, former detainee hired to make it ‘more realistic.’ (Think Progress)
A British video game development firm is in the process of creating a video game based on the U.S. prison camp at Guantanamo Bay. Entitled “Gitmo: Rendition,” the game “depicts the prison in the near future — after its anticipated closing by the U.S. government — as a camp run by mercenaries who detain innocents sold off to their captors to serve as ‘lab rats’ in scientific experiments.”

The Trauma of 9/11 Is No Excuse (by Richard A. Clarke, national coordinator for security and counterterrorism under Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush)
“I’ll freely admit that watching a coordinated, devastating attack on our country from an underground bunker at the White House can affect how you view your responsibilities,” Cheney said in his recent speech. But this defense does not stand up. The Bush administration’s response actually undermined the principles and values America has always stood for in the world, values that should have survived this traumatic event. The White House thought that 9/11 changed everything. It may have changed many things, but it did not change the Constitution, which the vice president, the national security adviser and all of us who were in the White House that tragic day had pledged to protect and preserve.
Is that a dig at Obama, too?

Cheney Blames Richard Clarke For 9/11: ‘He Missed It’ (Think Progress)
Speaking at the National Press Club [Monday], Cheney struck back at Clarke [see above]. When asked about Clarke’s argument, Cheney — once again — invoked the “burning ashes” of 9/11 and the victims who leaped to their deaths from the World Trade Center. Then, quite succinctly, Cheney pinned the entire blame for 9/11 on Clarke. In fact, it was Cheney who “missed” the warning signs, not Clarke. New York Times reporter Philip Shenon’s book, “The Commission: The Uncensored History of the 9/11 Investigation,” reprinted some of Clarke’s emphatic e-mails warning the Bush administration of the al Qaeda threat throughout 2001…

Similarly, Time Magazine reported in 2002 that Clarke had an extensive plan to “roll back” al Qaeda — a plan that languished for months, ignored by senior Bush officials… Cheney needs to check his “recollections” before blaming former employees for the single most devestating attack in American history.
Cheney has never cared about the truth before, why should we think he cares about it now?

Internet Weekly Report

Cheney Says There Was No Iraq Link to 9/11 Attacks (Bloomberg)
Former Vice President Dick Cheney disavowed intelligence he once cited to suggest that then-Iraq dictator Saddam Hussein collaborated with al-Qaeda to stage the Sept. 11 attacks. Cheney said [Monday] that information by the Central Intelligence Agency of collaboration between Iraq and al-Qaeda on Sept. 11 “turned out not to be true.” Still, Cheney said a longstanding relationship existed between Hussein and terrorist groups, including al-Qaeda, that justified the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003… On whether Hussein helped al-Qaeda carry out the 2001 terrorist attacks, Cheney said, “I do not believe, and I have never seen any evidence, that he was involved in 9/11.”

Cheney continued his attacks on President Barack Obama’s pledge to close the prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where suspected terrorists are being held. Obama has called the indefinite detention of suspects at Guantanamo a “mistake” and said he will close the camp — a vow that has been complicated by the refusal of lawmakers, including Democrats, to provide funding.

Obama Talks of Being ‘Honest’ With Israel (New York Times)
President Obama indicated on Monday that he would be more willing to criticize Israel than previous administrations have been, and he reiterated his call for a freeze of Israeli settlements… His comments, on the eve of his first trip as president to the Middle East, where he is scheduled to give a speech to the Muslim world in Cairo on Thursday, were made as Israeli officials dug in their heels against a settlement freeze.

Obama Has 250,000 “Contractors” in Iraq and Afghan Wars, Increases Number of Mercenaries (by Jeremy Scahill at Rebel Reports, thanks to J -SOM at Liberal Rapture)
According to new statistics released by the Pentagon, with Barack Obama as commander in chief, there has been a 23% increase in the number of “Private Security Contractors” working for the Department of Defense in Iraq in the second quarter of 2009 and a 29% increase in Afghanistan, which “correlates to the build up of forces” in the country… Overall, contractors (armed and unarmed) now make up approximately 50% of  the “total force in Centcom AOR [Area of Responsibility].” This means there are a whopping 242,657 contractors working on these two US wars.

White House Takes a Positive Step Toward Lobbying Disclosure (OpenSecrets.org)
So far determining who can communicate directly with White House officials about stimulus funds–and how they go about doing so–has been a work in progress. We commend the administration’s latest move to extend the ban on oral communications beyond registered lobbyists to include ANYONE who is connected to a competitive bid application that’s on the table. To limit this restriction to registered lobbyists only, as had been the case previously, does nothing to address the influence of corporate executives, “senior advisors” and other individuals who don’t fit the narrow definition of “registered lobbyist,” but who certainly have a stake in the decision…

It’s encouraging both that the White House sought input from groups promoting transparency and that the end result appears to strengthen the rules and improve the public’s ability to get information about where their tax dollars are going. 

POTUS Honors LGBT Pride Month by Not Supporting Same Sex Marriage, While Cheney Disagrees (by Jake Tapper at Political Punch, ABC News)
Saying he’s “proud to be the first President to appoint openly LGBT candidates to Senate-confirmed positions in the first 100 days of an Administration,” President Obama issued a presidential proclamation Monday in honor of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Pride Month. To LGBT activists, however, some of the omissions on his proclamation likely spoke louder than the words included… “During LGBT Pride Month, we commemorate the events of June 1969 and commit to achieving equal justice under law for LGBT Americans.” That equal justice under law did not include, in the president’s recitation, perhaps the highest profile issue on the gadar – same sex marriage, or what LGBT activists call “marriage equality.”

Interestingly, the presidential proclamation came the same day that Mr. Obama’s conservative nemesis, former Vice President Dick Cheney, seemed to say he supported same-sex marriage as long as the rules are determined on a state-by-state basis. Cheney was asked at the National Press Club, “given recent events in Iowa and elsewhere, is some form of legalized gay marriage inevitable for the United States?”… “People ought to be free to enter into any kind of union they wish, any kind of arrangement they wish,” said the laconic former veep, whose daughter Mary is lesbian, and has a son, Sam, with her partner Heather Poe.

How Obama Is Using the Science of Change (by Michael Grunwald, In These Times)
The existence of [a] behavioral dream team — which [in addition to psychologist Robert Cialdini] included best-selling authors Dan Ariely of MIT (Predictably Irrational) and Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein of the University of Chicago (Nudge) as well as Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman of Princeton — has never been publicly disclosed, even though its members gave Obama white papers on messaging, fundraising and rumor control as well as voter mobilization. All their proposals — among them the famous online fundraising lotteries that gave small donors a chance to win face time with Obama — came with footnotes to peer-reviewed academic research. “It was amazing to have these bullet points telling us what to do and the science behind it,” Moffo tells TIME. “These guys really know what makes people tick.”

President Obama is still relying on behavioral science. But now his Administration is using it to try to transform the country. Because when you know what makes people tick, it’s a lot easier to help them change.
Seems to me that the manipulation of the manipulable worked very well during the campaign. But the attempts at getting any movement going since the inauguration have been uncoordinated and extremely weak. Maybe the dream team is as disappointed in Obama as many of the rest of us. Maybe they quit helping him fool people.

Wolffe: Senate Dems wanted Clinton out (by Glenn Thrush at Politico)
In his new book on Obama, Newsweek/MSNBC contributor Richard Wolffe claims that many Senate Dems embraced the idea of appointing Hillary Clinton as secretary of state as a way of getting her out of the Senate.
There is no reason to demean and degrade Hillary Clinton like this. She was applauded by her Senate colleagues.

CNN, 6/24/08: “Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid called [the first party weekly luncheon attended by Hillary Clinton after the primary] ‘one of the most emotional caucuses’ he’s ever attended on Capitol Hill. He said the New York senator entered the event to a sea of high fives, cheers and a standing ovation from her Democratic colleagues.” They admired her because she didn’t lie down and give up when she was so besieged. She came back fighting, and fought on and on and on. And that’s when I became to truly admire her, as well—when I saw that she had thrown caution to the winds, decided to just be herself, and begun to actually enjoy herself campaigning.

No wonder Wolffe is on Keith Olbermann’s show so often.

Huffington Post Posts Sexist Post Because None Dare Call It Sexist? (No Blood for Hubris)
Don’t get your panties in a twist, ladies. Or gentlemen. As the case may be. Just want to assure you that it’s SO not sexist to write articles where readers get to rate the clothing of the Secretary of State of the United States. Along the prettiness/non-prettiness continuum. Because — why not? It’s a free country! We used to do it for Henry Kissinger and George Schultz and Colin Powell!! All-the-time. Really. Don’t you remember?

RANGEL: ETHICS PROBE NEAR COMPLETION (Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington)
Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.) said Friday that an ethics investigation into his personal finances and fundraising activities would wrap up “very soon.” The House ethics committee is reviewing several separate complaints against Rangel, including charges that he failed to pay taxes on a Dominican Republic villa, improper use of congressional letterhead for fundraising purposes, and allegations of a quid pro quo involving contributions to an educational center bearing his name.

Recovery bill ‘stimulates’ political attacks (On Politics, USA Today)
The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is hitting six House Republicans with robocalls and radio ads attacking them for their “no” votes on the stimulus bill earlier this year. 

Minnesota Justices Are Skeptical in Senate Case (New York Times)
A lawyer for Norm Coleman, the Republican who is fighting a recount battle with Al Franken, a Democrat, for a Senate seat, faced sharply skeptical questioning on Monday from justices of the Minnesota Supreme Court in a crucial hearing on the case. Mr. Coleman, who served one term before the November election, is challenging the rulings of a state recount board and a lower court, which declared Mr. Franken the winner of the race by hundreds of votes. Associate Justice Christopher J. Dietzen said Mr. Coleman’s argument that thousands of absentee ballots had been wrongfully excluded had “no concrete evidence to back it up.” He said, “In my experience, I’ve never seen an offer of proof like this.”

Sestak warns Obama, respectfully, to butt out (On Politics, USA Today)
If President Obama ever calls Joe Sestak with a request to exit the 2010 Senate race in Pennsylvania, the congressman already has an answer: no.
I LIKE this guy Joe Sestak.

Coburn Will Run for Re-Election (Political Wire)
Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) announced he will seek another term in the Senate, Tulsa World reports.
He maintained that, if re-elected, it will be his final term.

Cuomo Says He Isn’t Planning Run for Governor (Political Wire)
New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo (D) insisted over the weekend that he has no plans to challenge Gov. David Paterson (D) in a primary, reports the New York Daily News. Cuomo said his “plan” is to run for reelection next year even though most analysts assume he wants to be governor… Update: Politicker NY reports Cuomo promised Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-NY) that he would not run against Paterson.

Blagojevich Spoke to Durbin About Senate Plan (Political Wire)
Just two weeks before his arrest on corruption charges, then Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich “floated a plan to nominate to the U.S. Senate the daughter of his biggest political rival in return for concessions on his pet projects,” the AP reports. Blagojevich told Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) he was thinking of naming Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan (D) to the seat vacated by Barack Obama. “A Madigan appointment would have been a political shocker because the governor had been warring politically with her father, powerful Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, on and off for Blagojevich’s two terms in office.”

White House 2.0 (Center for American Progress)
Peter Swire discusses Web 2.0 issues specific to the federal government and how the Obama administration can promote open government and new technology for all Americans.

WH correspondents file another complaint about background briefings (Poynter Online)
“We protest in the strongest terms the Obama administration’s frequent use of briefings done on a background basis,” says AP’s Jennifer Loven, president of the White House Correspondents’ Association. Press secretary Robert Gibbs responds that it’s “interesting” that AP had no qualms about relying on unnamed “officials” in breaking the news of Sonia Sotomayor’s court nomination.

Saudis to Permit Journalism on Obama Trip (Politico)
Saudi Ambassador Adel Al-Jubeir has indicated that the State Department’s warning that journalists may not report in the country is “inaccurate.” “Journalists are free to go wherever and report on whatever they want,” emails Karen Hanretty of Qorvis Communications, which represents the Kingdom.
That doesn’t guarantee that we’ll get journalism coming from the White House press corpse.

The Puffington Host (by Isaac Chotiner, The New Republic, thanks to Liberal Rapture)
The Huffington Post is not just supplementing a print media that has long been dominated by newspapers. It is also helping to destroy newspapers… But some tough questions must be asked also about the powerful digital interlopers. For the blogosphere and the news aggregators that dominate cyberspace are completely reliant–completely parasitic–on the very institutions they are driving to bankruptcy. As my cursory summary of an afternoon’s content at The Huffington Post showed, the site is thoroughly dependent on the reporting that Huffington has spent three decades bashing… If print media disappear, what on earth will digital media write about? 

Given Huffington’s erstwhile concern that the citizenry would go around in “the cast off clothing of the latest media gurus,” her own ubiquitous presence on her site is rather amusing. What is she, if not a media guru? Her blog posts are given prominent play, as are her frequent television appearances. She is an accomplished self-aggregator. No print magazine or newspaper would permit itself such a cult of personality. But the focus on Huffington herself is congruent with the site’s other great obsession, aside from progressive politics: its adoration of celebrities. The celebrity-as-citizen-journalist is one of Huffington’s products.
Well, there’s your answer, Isaac. We’ll have Sean Penn covering school board meetings and Britney Spears reporting from the White House press room.

Colbert ‘Thrilled’ That Conservatives Believe He’s One of Them (The Envelope, Los Angeles Times)
Stephen Colbert the character, a right-wing blowhard on a one-man mission to reeducate the ignorant, is convincing enough that a recent Ohio State University study found that a majority of conservatives polled believed Colbert the man was one of them. The irony couldn’t please him more.

On comedy tour, Beck is seeking audience of people who ‘get it’ and will ’slap America across the face.’ (Think Progress)
Fox News personality Glenn Beck [kicked] off his Common Sense comedy tour “with a sold-out show at the Ellie Caulkins Opera House” in Denver, CO [Monday], “followed by five shows in five nights around the country.” Asked why he was starting in Denver, Beck said, “The people in the mountain west get it, generally,” he said. “They’re going to be the ones that step to the plate and slap America across the face and say, ‘Sit down and shut up.” Beck recently said that “[t]he live shows give him the chance to see firsthand what sort of themes are resonating among his regular followers.” One of the jokes that apparently resonated so well that it ended up in his tour promotional materials began, “You know that foam when somebody vomits? I took that foam and made it into a diamond.”
Click through to watch the promotional video.

L.A. Mayor Dating Another Local Newscaster
A Los Angeles television reporter is dating Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, about two years after his extramarital affair with another local newscaster led to the breakup of his 20-year marriage. KTLA-TV reporter Lu Parker, a former Miss U.S.A., has been dating Villaraigosa since March.

YOUR NAME HERE* (New York Post)
The Wollman Rink is already taken and so is the Delacorte Theater, but if you’ve got about $5 million to spare, your name could grace Central Park’s sprawling tennis center. Got only $2 million? How about sponsoring the Chelsea Recreation Center or the ball fields at DeWitt Clinton Park? They’re all part of a plan to raise revenue for the city in these harsh times by convincing corporations or wealthy individuals to part with big bucks to have their names attached to selected park facilities.
It’s just pitiful. What are they going to do when that money runs out? Sell the Hudson River? The sky above the city?

46 States and D.C. to Pursue Common Education Standards (Washington Post)
Forty-six states and the District of Columbia today will announce an effort to craft a single vision for what children should learn each year from kindergarten through high school graduation, an unprecedented step toward a uniform definition of success in American schools. The push for common reading and math standards marks a turning point in a movement to judge U.S. children using one yardstick that reflects expectations set for students in countries around the world at a time of global competition.

Mexican Truckers File $6 Billion Claim Against U.S. in Nafta Spat (Wall Street Journal)
A Mexican trade association representing more than 4,500 trucking companies is seeking $6 billion in damages from the U.S. government because of Washington’s refusal to allow Mexican trucks to carry cargo over U.S. roads. The group, Canacar, filed a demand for arbitration under the North American Free Trade Agreement with the U.S. State Department in April, but didn’t publicize the move until Monday.

Media Matters for America headlines

Fox News again distorts Obama’s Strasbourg remarks, promotes “another apology tour”

Fox & Friends falsely links Durbin to “pay-to-play” scheme

Wash. Post misleads on Obama administration plan for GM ownership

Baier ignores precedents, hypes cost of Obamas’ NYC trip

Tucker Carlson once criticized calling “your opponents … racists,” now uses word to describe Sotomayor

Drudge, NY Post report Obamas’ NYC trip cost, ignore Bush’s Crawford vacations

Limbaugh spoke for conservatives during last Sotomayor nomination, too

Fox News’s Wallace, Bream misrepresentedHeller to suggest Sotomayor engaged in “activism”

USA Today falsely suggested Tiller indiscriminately aborted viable fetuses

China Blocks Twitter (And Almost Everything Else) (Mashable)
It seems that as of today, the Chinese authorities have blocked internet access to Twitter, Flickr, Bing, Live.com, Hotmail.com and several other sites. WordPress, YouTube, Blogger are also blocked. According to early reports on Twitter and on blogs it seems that the Chinese authorities want to quiet down the entire major social networking and social media part of the web ahead of the 20th anniversary of Tiananmen massacre on June 4th.

Former Israeli TV host arrested over string of assaults‎
Dudu Topaz, once considered Israel’s most popular TV star, has been remanded to prison for eight days by a Tel Aviv court over incidents in which network executives and an agent were beaten. Israeli police arrested the 62-year-old entertainer on Sunday on suspicion of arranging the assaults against two men and one woman within the last year. The victims were executives for the Reshet and Keshet networks, as well as a talent agent who until recently represented Topaz.

U.K. Minister to Fight Libel Suit From Shock Jock Savage
British Home Secretary Jacqui Smith will fight defamation proceedings launched against her by U.S. conservative radio host Michael Savage, who has been barred from entering the U.K. Savage has hired a top law firm to sue Smith for libel after she put him on the country’s “least wanted” list.

Blogger jailed in Anna Nicole Smith defamation suit‎
A real estate agent in Houston who blogged about Anna Nicole Smith was jailed for contempt last week in a defamation case brought by the late Playboy model’s mother… Lyndal Harrington, who is accused of helping to spread falsehoods that Virgie Arthur married her stepbrother and abused Smith as a child, spent four nights in jail after she failed to comply with a court order to turn over her computer… Like many bloggers, Harrington doesn’t consider herself a publisher and did not realize she could be held liable for her posts.

AP Reveals More Details About Crack Down on Unfair Use 
The Associated Press is set to roll out more details on how it’s going to crack down on the misuse of its content. Of course at the heart of the issue, is what the AP considers to be theft and what exactly constitutes “fair use.”

Proposed: A News Corps to encourage young people to reinvent journalism
“We need to attract some of the most energetic and innovative minds to this reinvention” of journalism, writes Ken Doctor. “So let’s start with a News Corps of 1000, and a starting wage of $35,000 a year, a decent start and parallel to what Teach for America provides. That’s a tab of $35 million a year, a paltry sum by many measures and one that could be funded by a consortium of foundations to keep it free of government taint.”

Is Twitter more than just the latest info-plaything?
Paul Farhi asks: “Does it ‘work’ in any meaningful way — as a news-dissemination channel, a reporting and source-building tool, a promotional platform? Or is it merely, to buy the caricature, just a banal, narcississtic and often addictive time suck? The unsatisfying answer: It all depends.”

Twitter Is Breaking News, But ‘We Need Journalists,’ Co-Founder Biz Stone (Video) (by Andy Plesser, Beet.tv)
Biz Stone, co-founder of Twitter, told me that while Twitter “breaks” stories, it is not the whole picture and “journalists and reporters” are essential to make this work.

U.S. military turns to Twitter for Afghan hard news
“What are you doing?” For the U.S. military in Afghanistan, the answer to the latest social networking craze seems to be: “Killing Taliban.”

We just saw the worst quarter in modern history for US newspapers
Advertising sales fell by an unprecedented 28.3% in the first three months of 2009, plunging sales by more than $2.6 billion from the prior year, reports Alan Mutter. “Barring a miraculous turnaround in the economy, the first quarter sales performance suggests the industry could be headed to its first year since 1987 of less than $30 billion in annual sales.”

Yahoo Consortium Newspapers Starting to Book Local Ads (by David Johnson at Poynter Online)
Some newspapers in the Yahoo consortium are reporting that they are starting to find more success in their chase for local advertising online. Newspapers have sold an estimated $50 million dollars in Yahoo! inventory so far this year. One hundred and fifty papers are now using Yahoo’s behavioral targeting platform, with 350 more consortium members due to get on board.

Journalism Online close to announcing deals with newspapers
“We’ve signed a couple, we’re going to sign some more,” says Steve Brill. “We’re sort of holding off on making any public announcements about that, probably for three or four weeks.”

Philly.com Likely to Charge for Access by Year’s End
Philadelphia Media Holdings CEO Brian Tierney told WTXF-TV Fox 29′s “Good Day Philadelphia” program on Monday that a lot of other newspapers are already charging their customers for online access.

Something to avoid, if you’re planning to charge for content:
How To Read The WSJ For Free Online (Business Insider)
The WSJ wants to be indexed in and accessible via Google.  This is great for Google traffic.  But it also means you don’t really need a WSJ subscription to read any of its content online.
Click through for instructions.

Newspapers hope readers will pay a little more for the print edition
Raising newsstand and home-delivery prices is one of the few ways papers can boost revenue as advertisers cut spending, notes Greg Bensinger. “Ad sales have dropped so low that publishers said they are willing to lose some readers to get more money out of the loyal ones,” he writes.

VF editor to publishers: Give people a reason to read newspapers again
Graydon Carter’s idea: “Get on a big story with widespread public appeal, devote your best resources to it, say a quiet prayer, and swing for the fences.”

NYT Mag to Shrink Size 9 Percent
The New York Times Magazine, considered the top revenue producer of newspaper Sunday magazines and often ranking among the best ad revenue magazines in the country, is cutting its size by 9%. The smaller version of the glossy magazine will debut in two weeks with the June 14th issue.

Ex-Spokane editor thought he’d find a new job within months, but…
“Since beginning my serious job search in March, I’ve found the opportunities few and far between,” writes former Spokesman-Review editor Steven Smith. “And I am not alone. I have several friends who also are out of work, also in their late 50′s, also looking at career paths that simply no longer exist.”

Cast Out, but Still Reporting
At NewJerseyNewsroom.com, reporters pay for their own business cards but still do the work that they love.

GateHouse announces temporary salary reductions
The size of the pay cut is based on an employee’s salary, ranging from 7% up to just under 15% for the company’s top earners. With the cuts, GateHouse hopes to save $2.5 million this year.

CNHI Orders Second Round Of Furloughs 
“We will get through it all right,” said Bob Grady, editor of The Press-Republican of Plattsburgh, N.Y., one of the chain’s 88 dailies facing another unpaid, five-day furlough “It is tough because that is the preferred vacation season. It is also tough for people who are on the low pay scale.”

Is Si Newhouse the Last Old-Media Tycoon?
In the last two years, Newhouse has had to close Jane, House & Garden, Men’s Vogue, Golf for Women, Domino, and finally Portfolio. At Conde Nast, the rumor mill, accurate or not, continues to grind. Which will be next? Wired? Architectural Digest? Does the company really need two food magazines? The grim work has taken a toll.

Some fashion mags let readers know when cover models aren’t Photoshopped
Last month, Life & Style took the unusual step of declaring that a cover photo of Kim Kardashian was “100 percent unretouched,” while People, in its “100 Most Beautiful” issue, included images of 11 celebrities “wearing nothing but moisturizer.”

Advertising Potential on Kindle: Showtime Starts With Script Downloads (Paid Content)
Amazon’s Kindle is being touted by some in the industry as one of the surefire ways publishers and content providers can charge for content, but Showtime is thinking a bit laterally on it: the CBS-owned subscription cable channel network is offering a free, downloadable version of the pilot script for its new series “Nurse Jackie,” featuring former Sopranos star Edie Falco, reports AdAge. This is the first such ad deal on Kindle… [E]xpect more such efforts, including media/newspaper publishers trying to promote their products. The wireless connection on Kindle could be used to serialize such efforts, if Amazon opens itself up to it.

Publishers look to music lessons on digital content
Publishers are learning from music labels’ struggle to make online music profitable and combat piracy, but so-called e-books will only add value to the industry and not replace printed books, experts say

NYT’s Nicholas Kristof Gets Into Gaming
When Kristof, and his wife, former New York Times editor Sheryl WuDunn, release their new book in September, they plan on accompanying the work with a free social networking game that they hope will educate a new crop of activists about women’s rights.

An In-Flight Magazine Is Given an Upgrade
United Airlines’s magazine, Hemispheres, has taken on more of an edge; its staff members formerly worked at publications like Radar and Rolling Stone.

People Launches Paid iPhone App
The pendulum has swung back and forth a few times in recent years on the pay-to-play mobile content model. In its recent arc, most brands were launching mobile Web sites that followed the same free, ad-supported path as their Web counterparts. The new application model allows brands like People to craft a more flexible and deeper experience.

Hearst’s Contrarian Strategy Pays Off
Hearst Magazines, a unit of the Hearst Corporation, has repeatedly gone against the grain, from its traditional tight cost control in an often profligate business, to lagging years behind in building magazine Web sites, to recently raising prices and increasing the physical size of its pages.

Previous Bidder Takes Minority Stake in TV Guide Network for $123M
Film entertainment studio Lionsgate has sold a 49 percent stake in the TV Guide Network and TVGuide.com to Allen Shapiro and One Equity Partners for $123 million in cash. Less than five months ago, Macrovision backed out of an agreement to sell the network to Shapiro and the private equity firm.

Despite bankruptcy, GM returns to radio.
GM’s new campaign focus is ‘reinvention’. Their quick return to radio is welcome news but its bankruptcy filing shows that ad agencies are owed millions. Starcom MediaVest Group in Chicago claims $121.5 million and is listed as the No. 6 creditor on a long list.

Clear Channel considers debt swap.
Clear Channel is reportedly looking at several options as it faces billions of debt and advertising revenue declines.

@ E3: Paul, Ringo Whip Up Beatlemania With Rock Band Details (Paid Content)
Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr helped Microsoft kick off its E3 keynote with a wave of harmonized sound: a trailer and gameplay footage from the upcoming The Beatles: Rock Band. The game drops on September 9—coinciding with the release of all 13 of The Beatles’ remastered albums—and includes previously unreleased in-studio commentary.
Click through for more, and to watch the trailer.

CBS News to Stream Live Online
Seeking a younger audience more accustomed to watching the news on the Internet than on television, CBS News said Monday that it had joined with a live video Web site to simulcast its newscasts and special reports.

@ EconAffinity: CBS’ McManus: We Will Not Sacrifice TV Revenue For More Online Viewing (Paid Content)
Don’t expect to be able to watch the Super Bowl live online anytime soon ,Sean McManus, president, CBS News & Sports, told Staci D. Kramer, EVP and Co-Editor of paidContent parent ContentNext in the opening panel of the company’s EconAffinity conference. CBS, which has the rights to the Super Bowl in 2013, is “looking at possible ways of using the internet to augment the audience, as we’ve done with fantasy football,” McManus said. “They’ll watch the live product and use the site. We’re not going to do anything to sacrifice the revenue opportunity of the Super Bowl on TV, such as live streaming.”

The Ad Campaign for a ‘New’ G.M.
A new TV commercial combines patriotic images with some straight talk about G.M.’s failings.

Online, ‘a Reason to Keep on Going’
“One of the greatest challenges or losses that we face as older adults, frankly, is not about our health, but it’s actually about our social network deteriorating on us, because our friends get sick, our spouse passes away, friends pass away, or we move,” said Joseph F. Coughlin, director of the AgeLab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “The new future of old age is about staying in society, staying in the workplace and staying very connected,” he added. “And technology is going to be a very big part of that, because the new reality is, increasingly, a virtual reality. It provides a way to make new connections, new friends and new senses of purpose.”

Disney Eyes Mommy Demo on Web
Just as its latest Pixar-produced blockbuster hits theaters, and Hannah Montana continues to rule the kids TV landscape, Disney is looking to go hard after an older demo on the Web. Disney plans to bundle a number of parenting sites in what it’s calling the Disney Online Mom and Family Portfolio.

eMusic Gets Its First Major – But Sony Only Gives Its Long Tail (Paid Content)
Eleven years after it opened up shop, eMusic has finally won its first major-label repertoire, in the shape of Sony Music Entertainment – but the label is only consenting to give tunes older than two years. eMusic started in 1998, but the combination of its pre-pay subscription plan and DRM-free MP3s have made it unpalatable to everyone bar the indies. In that time, it claims to have attracted over 400,000 customers, each paying at least $11.99 a month for 24 songs… In the last two years, during which the proportion of music downloads that are illegal rose to 95 percent by the record industry’s own estimates, labels have finally come around to the idea of DRM-free a la carte track downloads.

Next Stop For Google Alums: A Review Site (Paid Content)
Nextstop.com … thinks it has found a niche: Short, Tweet-like reviews of businesses and locales… “It’s a lot like what you would (say) if you had a friend who was visiting (your city)—the whole site is built around positive, short recommendations,” co-founder Adrian Graham tells paidContent… Graham says that he along with Sjogreen and Lin launched Nextstop.com out of their own frustration while traveling to cities they were not familiar with. “It’s difficult to find interesting things to do—both specific to our personal interests and that are unusual or off of the beaten path,” he says.

LetsEat.at Helps Local Restaurants Build Targeted Websites (Mashable)
The service, simply put, creates a functional restaurant web page without the need for a web designer or a programmer. Instead, you just have to go through a step-by-step process to get a website up. You start by picking your restaurant name, your letseat.at URL, and the package you want – basic and and advanced are free (but ad-supported), while pro costs $5 per month. After that, you can perform a variety of tasks, like writing introductions to your restaurant, uploading logos, posting menus, and providing driving directions.

MashLogic Raises $500,000 From Angel Investors (Paid Content)
MashLogic offers an add-on for Firefox and Internet Explorer that lets users see additional content from third-party sites while surfing the web. For instance, if a user selects Wikipedia as a site that they are interested in, hovering over a proper name on a web page might surface a pop up with the Wikipedia entry for that individual.
I wish they’d use right click, or some other action by the user. The rollover popups are extremely annoying.

Tech Company Helps South Korean Students Ace Entrance Tests
Megastudy.net, an online tutoring service, may be the perfect convergence of South Koreans’ dual obsessions with educational credentials and the Internet.

U.S. military using Facebook, Twitter
The U.S. military in Afghanistan is launching a Facebook page, a YouTube site and feeds on Twitter as part of a new communications effort to reach readers who get their information on the Internet rather than in newspapers, officials said Monday.

Holy Twitter! Tweeting from the pews
Welcome to the 3G(od) network, where social media have become as vital a communication tool for clergy and congregations as the traditional post-sermon coffee hour.

Happn.in Finds What’s Hot in Your City on Twitter (Mashable)
Happn.in tracks local Twitter users in 52 global cities, and computes a list of the top 10 phrases used in each city every hour. The top phrases used significantly more often that hour than the last are compiled into a list of trends… This is important because very often things trend locally that would be important to residents of that area, but not to the rest of the world. Without a way to track those local trends, it might be difficult to find that sort of news.

Twitter is Not Your Average Social Network (Mashable)
A study conducted by Harvard Business Review reveals that most Twitter users don’t actually use the service much, or even at all. In fact, 10% of active users are responsible for over 90% of all Tweets… Although this may sound strange at first, Twitter really is more like Wikipedia than, say, Facebook. Twitter is not so much about connecting with your friends, it’s about broadcasting information. Although it doesn’t necessarily take much creativity to create a tweet, only the most creative users actually persist in tweeting every day over a longer time period.

Twitter Your Way to Getting Robbed (Mashable)
Israel Hyman (@izzyvideo), a video podcaster, took a trip to the midwest with his family and twittered about the excursion. He came home to find that his house had been burglarized.

INQ Mobile to roll out Twitter-phone
Cell phone maker INQ Mobile plans to introduce a Twitter phone in time for the Christmas sales season, hoping to benefit from surging interest in the micro-blogging service, INQ’s head told Reuters on Tuesday.

Garmin-Asus’ First Android Smartphone Due Next Year
Garmin-Asus plans to launch its first smartphone based on Google’s Android mobile operating system no later than the first quarter of next year, executives said Tuesday in Taipei.

Acer May Be First With Android Netbook
Acer plans to launch a version of its Aspire One netbook with Google’s Android mobile operating system in the third quarter of this year, a top executive at the company said Tuesday

Cellphone Locator System Needs No Satellite
Wi-Fi signals and cell towers help iPhones and other devices using Skyhook Wireless to figure out where they are.

Mobile Internet makes its way into cars
Some Chrysler and Cadillac dealers are selling Wi-Fi for vehicles as an optional $499 add-on, but it’s too soon to know whether demand for mobile Internet in vehicles will be strong.

Microsoft unveils new Xbox technology
Microsoft Corp on Monday offered a glimpse into a future where the Xbox 360 console is the centerpiece of any living room, and games, social interaction and communications are controlled with the wave of a hand.

Xbox Live to Add Facebook and Twitter Integration (Mashable)
[Monday], at the E3 conference, Microsoft announced that both Facebook Connect and Sign-In With Twitter would be integrated with Xbox Live, starting this fall. In other words, games on the Xbox 360 platform could soon support features like playing versus your friends on various social networks, and then feed game play data back into the respective website. Early screenshots, however, look a bit more basic, with Gizmodo explaining that you’ll be able to send “in-game screenshots to your Facebook profile in real-time” as an example of the functionality.

Sony Not Pursing Music Downloads For Its Playstation Network, For Now (by Rafat Ali at Paid Content)
Sony, which can never make up its mind about its digital downloads strategy for the Playstation brand, has done another about turn: it has decided not to pursue a music download strategy for its Playtstation Network (PSN), we have learned, and its head of labels relations has left, as a result.

Justices to Weigh Issue of Patenting Business Methods
The Supreme Court will decide what kinds of processes can be protected, an issue that could have far-reaching implications, especially in technology.
Remember the patenting of “one click” online purchasing? It’s like trying to patent the letter “e”.